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H^t^oes of the f^evolution 



James Parton. 



With Introduction. 




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HISTORICAL CLASSIC READINGS— No. lo. 



Revolutionary Heroes, 



And Other Historical Papers. 



Gen. Joseph Warren. 
Capt. Nathan Hale. 
Gen. Washington's Spies. 
Valley Forge. 
John Adams. 



Signing the Declaration of 

Independence. 
Robert Morris. 
John Jay. 
Fisher Ames. 



The Pinckneys. 



JAMES ^PARTON, 



AUTHOR OF 



Life of Horace Greeley," ''Life of Andrew Jackson," 
Benjamin Franklin," etc. etc. 



Life and Times of 



W^'xX^ Kntroiruction* 




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Historical Classic Readings. 

With hitroductio7is and Explanatory Notes. 
For Classes in History, Reading, and Literature. 

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The following Numbers, uniform in style and size with this 
volume, are now ready : 

1. Discovery of America. Washington Irving. 
3. Settlement of VirsLfinia. Capt. John Smith. 

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FOKD. 

4. King Philip's War, and Witchcraft in New England. 

Gov. Thomas Hutchinson. 

5. Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley. 

John Gilmary Shea. 

6. Champlain and His Associates. Francis Parkman. 

7. Kraddocli's Defeat. Francis Parkman. 

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9. Colonial Pioneers. James Pakton. 

10. Heroes of tlie Revolution. James Parton. 
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Introduction. 



James Parton was born in Canterbury, England, Feb- 
ruary 9, 1822. When five years old he was brought to 
America and given an education in the schools of New York 
City, and at White Plains, N. Y. Subsequently he engaged 
in teaching in Philadelphia and New York City, and for 
three years was a contributor to the Home Journal. Since 
that time, he has devoted his life to literary labors, contrib- 
uting many articles to periodicals and publishing books on 
biographical subjects. While employed on ih.^ Home Journal 
it occurred to him that an interesting story could be made 
out of the life of Horace Greeley, and he mentioned the idea 
to a New York publisher. Receiving the needed encourage- 
ment, Mr. Parton set about collecting material from Greeley's 
former neighbors in Vermont and New Hampshire, and in 
1855 produced the " Life of Horace Greeley," which he after- 
wards extended and completed in 1885. This venture was 
so profitable that he was encouraged to devote himself to 
authorship. In 1856 he brought out a collection of Humorous 
Poetry of the English Language from Chaucer to Saxe. 
Following this appeared in 1857 the '' Life of Aaron Burr," 
prepared from original sources and intended to redeem Burr's 
reputation from the charges that attached to his memory. In 
writing the " Life of Andrew Jackson " he also had access to 
original and unpublished documents. This work was pub- 
lished in three volumes in 1859-60. Other works of later 
publication are: "General Butler in New Orleans" (1863 
and 1882); "Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin" (1864); 
" How New York is Governed " (1866) ; "Famous Americans of 

3 



. introduc tion; 

Recent Times," containing Sketches of Henry Clay, Daniel 
Webster, John C. Calhoun, John Randolph, and others (1867); 
"The People's Book of Biography," containing eighty short 
lives (1868); "Smoking and Drinking," an essay on the evils 
of those practices, reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly (1869); 
a pamphlet entitled "The Danish Islands: Are We Bound 
to Pay for Them?" (1869); "Topics of the Time," a col- 
lection of magazine articles, most of tliem treating of ad- 
ministrative abuses at Washington (1871); "Triumphs of 
Enterprise, Ingenuity, and Public Spirit" (1871); "The 
Words of Washington" (1872); " Fanny Fern," a memorial 
volume (1873); " Life of Thomas Jefferson, Third President of 
the United States" (1874); "Taxation of Church Property" 
(1874); "La Parnasse Frangais: a Book of French Poetry 
from A.D. 1850 to the Present Time " (1877); " Caricature and 
other Comic Art in All Times and Many Lands " (1877); "A 
Life of Voltaire," which was the fruit of several years' labor 
(1881); " Noted Women of Europe and America " (1883); and 
"Captains of Industry, or Men of Business who did some- 
thing besides Making Money: a Book for Young Americans." 
In addition to his writing Mr. Parton has proved a very 
successful lecturer on literary and political topics. 

In January, 1856, Mr. Parton married Sara Payson 
Willis, a sister of the poet N. P. Willis, and herself famous 
as " Fanny Fern," the name of her pen. He made New York 
City his home until 1875, three years after the death of his 
wife, when he went to Newburyport, where he now lives. 
The London Athcnanm well characterizes Mr. Parton as " a 
painstaking, honest, and courageous historian, ardent with 
patriotism, but unprejudiced; a writer, in short, of whom the 
people of the United States have reason to be proud." 

The contents of this book have been selected from among 
the great number contributed from time to time by Mr. Par- 
ton, and are considered as particularly valuable and interest- 
ing reading. 



Revolutionary Heroes. 



General Joseph Warren. 

A FIERY, vehement, daring spirit was this Joseph Warren, 
who was a doctor thirteen years, a major-general three days, 
and a soldier three hours. 

In that part of Boston which is called Roxbury, there is 
a modern house of stone, on the front of which a passer-by 
may read the following inscription : 

*'0n this spot stood the house erected in 1720 by Joseph 
Warren, of Boston, remarkable for being the birth-place of 
General Joseph Warren, his grandson, who was killed at the 
battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775." 

There is another inscription on the house which reads 
thus : 

'* John Warren, a distinguished Physician and Anatomist, 
was also born here. The original mansion being in ruins, 
this house was built by John C. Warren, M.D., in 1846, son 
of the last-named, as a permanent memorial of the spot." 

I am afraid the builder of this new \\o\x'=,^ poetized 2. little 
when he styled the original edifice a mansion. It was a 
plain, roomy, substantial farm-house, about the centre 
of the little village of Roxbury, and the father of Warren 
who occupied it was an industrious, enterprising, intelligent 
farmer, who raised superior fruits and vegetables for the 
Boston market. Warren's father was a beginner in that 
delightful industry, and one of the apples which he in- 



Q RE VOL U TIONA R Y HEROES. 

troduced into the neighborhood retains to this day the name 
which it bore in his hfetime, the Warren Russet. 

A tragic event occurred at this farm-house in 1775, when 
Warren was a boy of fourteen. It was on an October day, 
in the midst of the apple-gathering season, about the time 
when the Warren Russet had attained all the maturity it 
can upon its native tree. Farmer Warren was out in his 
orchard. His wife, a woman worthy of being the mother 
of such a son as she had, was indoors getting dinner ready 
for her husband, her four boys, and the two laborers upon 
the farm. About noon she sent her youngest son, John, 
mentioned in the above inscription, to call his father to din- 
ner. On the way to the orchard the lad met the two labor- 
ers carrying towards the house his father's dead body. 
While standing upon a ladder gathering apples from a high 
tree, Mr. Warren had fallen to the ground and broken his 
neck. He died almost instantly. 

The Boston Nezvslettei' of the following week bestowed a 
few lines upon the occurrence ; speaking of hirri as a man of 
good understanding, industrious, honest and faithful; "a 
useful member of society, who was generally respected 
among us, and whose death is universally lamented." 

Fortunate is the family which in such circumstances has 
a mother wise and strong. She carried on the farm with 
the assistance of one of her sons so successfully that she 
was able to continue the education of her children, all of 
whom except the farmer obtained respectable rank in one 
of the liberal professions. This excellent mother lived in 
widowhood nearly fifty years, saw Thomas Jefferson President 
of the United States, and died 1803, aged ninety-three years, 
in the old house at home. Until she was past eighty she 
made with her own hands the pies for Thanksgiving-day, 
when all her children and grandchildren used to assemble at 
the spacious old Roxbury house. 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. ^ 

It was in the very year of his father's death, 1755, that 
Joseph Warren entered Harvard College, a vigorous, hand- 
some lad of fourteen, noted even then for his spirit, courage 
and resolution. Several of his class one day, in the course 
of a frolic, in order to exclude him from the fun, barred the 
door so that he could not force it. Determined to join 
them, he went to the roof of the house, slid down by the 
spout, and sprang through the open window into the room. 
At that moment the spout fell to the ground. 

'' It has served my purpose," said the youth coolly. 

The records of the college show that he held respectable 
rank as a student ; and as soon as he had graduated, he re- 
ceived an appointment which proves that he was held in 
high estimation in his native village. We find him at nine- 
teen master of the Roxbury Grammar School, at a salary of 
forty-four pounds and sixteen shillings per annum, payable 
to his mother. A receipt for part of this amount, signed by 
his mother and in her handwriting, is now among the 
archives of that ancient and famous institution. He taught 
one year, at the end of which he entered the of^ce of a Bos- 
ton physician, under whom he pursued the usual medical 
studies and was admitted to practice. 

The young doctor, tall, handsome, alert, graceful, full of 
energy and fire, was formed to succeed in such a communi- 
ty as that of Boston. His friends, when he was twenty-three 
years of age, had the pleasure of reading in the Boston news- 
paper the following notice : 

'' Last Thursday evening was married Dr. Joseph Warren, 
one of the physicians of this town, to Miss Elizabeth Hooton, 
only daughter of the late Mr: Richard Hooton, merchant, 
deceased, an accomplished young lady with a handsome for- 
tune." 

Thus launched in life and gifted as he was, it is not sur- 
prising that he should soon have attained a considerable 



g REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 

practice. But for one circumstance he would have advanced 
in his profession even more rapidly than he did. When he 
had been but a few months married, the Stamp Act was 
passed, which began the long series of agitating events that 
ended in severing the colonies from the mother country. 
The wealthy society of Boston, from the earliest period 
down to the present hour, has always been on what is 
called the conservative side in politics ; and it was eminently 
so during the troubles preceding the revolutionary v/ar. 
The whole story is told in a remark made by a Boston Tory 
doctor in those times : 

" If Warren were not a Whig," said he, " he might soon 
be independent and ride in his chariot." 

There were, however, in Boston Whig families enough to 
give him plenty of business, and he was for many years their 
favorite physician. He attended the family of John Adams, 
and saved John Quincy, his son, from losing one of his fore- 
fingers when it was very badly fractured. Samuel Adams, 
who was the prime mover of the Opposition, old enough to 
be his father, inspired and consulted him. Gradually, as the 
quarrel grew warmer, Dr. Warren was drawn into the coun- 
cils of the leading Whigs, and became at last almost wholly 
a public man. Without being rash or imprudent, he was one 
of the first to be ready to meet force with force, and he 
was always in favor of the measures which were boldest and 
most decisive. At his house Colonel Putnam was a guest 
on an interesting occasion, \vhen he was only known for his 
exploits in the French war. 

''The old hero, Putnam," says a Boston letter of 1774, 
"arrived in town on Monday, bringing \vith him one hun- 
dred and thirty sheep from the little parish of Brooklyn." 

It was at Dr. Warren's house that the " old hero " staid, 
and thither flocked crowds of people to see him, and talk 
over the thrilling events of the time. The sheep which he 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 9 

brought with him were to feed the people of Boston, whose 
business was suspended by the closing of the port. 

The presence of the British troops in Boston roused all 
Warren's indignation. Overhearing one day some British 
officers saying that the Americans would not fight, he said 
to a friend ; 

" These fellows say we will not fight. By heavens, I hope 
I shall die up to my knees in their blood !" 

Soon after, as he was passing the public gallows on the 
Neck, he overheard one of a group of officers say in an in- 
suiting tone : 

" Go on, Warren ; you will soon come to the gallows." 

The young doctor turned, walked up to the officers, and 
said to them quietly : 

"Which of you uttered those words." 

They passed on without giving any reply. He had not 
long to wait for a proof that his countrymen w^ould fight. 
April nineteenth, 1775, word w^as brought to him by a spe- 
cial messenger of the events which had occurred on the vil- 
lage green at Lexington. He called to his assistant, told 
him to take care of his patients, mounted his horse, and rode 
toward the scene of action. 

" Keep up a brave heart !" he cried to a friend in passing. 
" They have begun it. TJiat either party can do. And we 
will end it. TJiat only one can do." 

Riding fast, he was soon in the thick of the melee, and 
kept so close to the point of contact that a British musket ball 
struck a pin out of his hair close to one of his ears. Wherever 
the danger was greatest there was Warren, now a soldier 
joining in the fight, now a surgeon binding up wounds, now 
a citizen cheering on his fellows. From this day he made 
up his mind to perform his part in the coming contest as a 
soldier, not as a physician, nor in any civil capacity ; and ac- 
cordingly on the fourteenth of June, 1775, the Massachu- 



XO RE VOL U TIONA R Y HEROES. 

setts legislature elected him '' second Major-General of the 
Massachusetts army." Before he had received his commis- 
sion occurred the battle of Bunker Hill, June seventeenth. 
He passed the night previous in public service, for he was 
President of the Provincial Congress, but, on the seventeenth, 
when the congress met at Watertown, the president did not 
appear. Members knew where he was, for he had told his 
friends that he meant to take part in the impending move- 
ment. 

It was a burning hot summer's day. After his night of 
labor, Warren threw himself on his bed, sick from a nervous 
headache. The booming of the guns summoned him forth, 
and shortly before the first assault he was on the field ready 
to serve. 

" I am here," he said to General Putnam, " only as a volun- 
teer. Tell me where I can be most useful." 

And to Colonel Prescott he said : 

"I shall take no command here. I come as a volunteer, 
with my musket to serve under you.' 

And there he fought during the three onsets, cheering 
the men by his coolness and confidence. He was one of the 
the very last to leave the redoubt. When he had retreated 
about sixty yards he was recognized by a British officer, who 
snatched a musket from a soldier and shot him. The bullet 
entered the back of his head. Warren placed his hands, as 
if mechanically, to the wound, and fell dead upon the hot 
and dusty field. 

The enemy buried him where he fell. Nine months after, 
when the British finally retreated from New England, his 
body, recognized by two false teeth, was disinterred and 
honorably buried. He left four children, of whom the 
eldest was a girl six years of age. Congress adopted the 
eldest son. Among those who contributed most liberally 
toward the education and support of the other children was 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. \\ 

Benedict Arnold, who gave five hundred dollars. A little 
psalm book found by a British soldier in Warren's pocket 
on the field is still in possession of one of his descendants. 



Captain Nathan Hale, the Martyr-Spy. 

General Washington wanted a man. It was in Sep- 
tember, 1776, at the City of New York, a few days after the 
battle of Long Island. The swift and deep East River 
flowed between the two hostile armies, and General Wash- 
ington had as yet no system established for getting infor- 
mation of the enemy's movements and intentions. He never 
needed such information so much as at that crisis. 

What would General Howe do next ? If he crossed at 
Hell Gate, the American army, too small in numbers, and 
defeated the week before, might be caught on Manhattan 
Island as in a trap, and the issue of the contest might be 
made to depend upon a single battle ; for in such circum- 
stances defeat would involve the capture of the whole 
army. And yet General Washington was compelled to 
confess : 

'' We cannot learn, nor have we been able to procure the 
least information of late." 

Therefore he wanted a man. He wanted an intelligent 
man, cool-headed, skillful, brave, to cross the East River to 
Long Island, enter the enemy's camp, and get information 
as to his strength and intentions. He went to Colonel 
Knowlton, commanding a remarkably efficient regiment 
from Connecticut, and requested him to ascertain if this 
man, so sorely needed, could be found in his command. 
Colonel Knowlton called his ofiRcers together, stated the 
wishes of General Washington, and, without urging the en- 



12 REVOLUTIONARY HERO ES. 

terprise upon any individual, left the matter to their reflec- 
tions. 

Captain Nathan Hale, a brilliant youth of twenty-one, 
recently graduated from Yale College, was one of those who 
reflected upon the subject. He soon reached a conclusion. 
He was of the very flower of the young men of New Eng- 
land, and one of the best of the younger soldiers of the 
patriot army. He had been educated for the ministry, and 
his motive in adopting for a time the profession of arms was 
purely patriotic. This we know from the familiar records of 
his life at the time when the call to arms was first heard. 

In addition to his other gifts and graces, he was hand- 
some, vigorous, and athletic, all in an extraordinary degree. 
If he had lived in our day he might have pulled the stroke- 
oar at New London, or pitched for the college nine. 

The officers were conversing in a group. No one had as 
yet spoken the decisive word. Colonel Knowlton appealed 
to a French sergeant, an old soldier of former wars, and 
asked him to volunteer. 

'' No, no," said he. " I am ready to fight the British at 
any place and time, but I do not feel willing to go among 
them to be hung up like a dog." 

Captain Hale joined the group of officers. He said to 
Colonel Knowlton : 

" I will undertake it." 

Some of his best friends remonstrated. One of them, 
afterwards the famous general William Hull, then a captain 
in Washington's army, has recorded Hale's reply to his own 
attempt to dissuade him. 

'' I think," said Hale, " I owe to my country the accom- 
plishment of an object so important. I am fully sensible of 
the consequences of discovery and capture in such a situa- 
tion. But for a year I have been attached to the army, and 
have not rendered any material service, while receiving a 



RE VOL UTIONA R Y HEROES. 13 

compensation for which I make no return. I wish to be 
useful, and every kind of service necessary for the pubhc 
good becomes honorable by being necessary." 

He spoke, as General Hull remembered, with earnestness 
and decision, as one who had considered the matter well, 
and had made up his mind. 

Having received his instructions, he traveled fifty miles 
along the Sound as far as Norwalk in Connecticut. One 
who saw him there made a very wise remark upon him, to 
the effect that he was " too good-looking" to go as a spy. 
He could not deceive. ** Some scrubby fellow ought to 
have gone." At Norwalk he assumed the disguise of a 
Dutch schoolmaster, putting on a suit of plain brown 
clothes, and a round, broad-brim.med hat. He had no diffi- 
culty in crossing the Sound, since he bore an order from 
General Washington which placed at his disposal all the 
vessels belonging to Congress. For several days everything 
appears to have gone well with him, and there is reason to 
believe that he passed through the entire British army with- 
out detection or even exciting suspicion. 

Finding the British had crossed to New York, he fol- 
lowed them. He made his way back to Long Island, and 
nearly reached the point opposite Norwalk where he had 
originally landed. Rendered perhaps too bold by success, 
he went into a well-known and popular tavern, entered into 
conversation with the guests, and made himself very agree- 
able. The tradition is that he made himself too agreeable. 
A man present suspecting or knowing that he was not the 
character he had assumed, quietly left the room, communi- 
cated his suspicions to the ciptain of a British ship anchored 
near, who dispatched a boat's crew to capture and bring on 
board the agreeable stranger. His true character was im- 
mediately revealed. Drawings of some of the British works, 
with notes in Latin, were found hidden in the soles of his 



l^ REVOLUTIONARY HEROES, 

shoes. Nor did he attempt to deceive his captors, and the 
Enghsh captain, lamenting, as he said, that '' so fine a fel- 
low had fallen into his power," sent him to New York in 
one of his boats, and with him the fatal proofs that he was 
a spy. 

September twenty-first w^as the day on which he reached 
New York — the day of the great fire which laid one-third of 
the little city in ashes. From the time of his departure 
from General Washington's camp to that of his return to 
New York was about fourteen days. He was taken to Gen- 
eral Howe's headquarters at the Beekman mansion, on the 
East River, near the corner of the present Fifty-first Street 
and First Avenue. It is a strange coincidence that this 
house to which he was brought to be tried as a spy w^as the 
very one from w^hich Major Andre departed when he went 
to West Point. Tradition says that Captain Hale was ex- 
amined in a greenhouse which then stood in the garden of 
the Beekman mansion. 

Short was his trial, for he avowed at once his true char- 
acter. The British general signed an order to his provost- 
marshal directing him to receive into his custody the pris- 
oner convicted as a spy, and to see him hanged by the neck 
'' to-morrow morning at daybreak." 

Terrible things are reported of the manner in which this 
noble prisoner^ this admirable gentleman and hero, was 
treated by his jailer and executioner. There are savages 
in every large army, and it is possible that this provost- 
marshal was one of them. It is said that he refused him 
writing-materials, and afterwards, when Captain Hale had 
been furnished them by others, destroyed before his face 
his last letters to his mother and to the young lady to 
whom he was engaged to be married. As those letters 
were never received this statement may be true. The other 
alleged horrors of the execution it is safe to disregard, be- 



^EVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 15 

cause we know that It was conducted in the usual form and 
in the presence of many spectators and a considerable body 
of troops. One fact shines out from the distracting confu- 
sion of that morning, which will be cherished to the latest 
posterity as a precious ingot of the moral treasure of the 
American people. When asked if he had anything to say, 
Captain Hale replied : 

*' I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my 
country." 

The scene of his execution was probably an old grave- 
yard in Chambers Street, which was then called Barrack 
Street. General Howe formally notified General Washing- 
ton of his execution. In recent years, through the industry 
of investigators, the pathos and sublimity of these events 
have been in part revealed. 

In 1887 a bronze statue of the young hero was unveiled 
in the State House at Hartford. Mr. Charles Dudley War- 
ner delivered a beautiful address suitable to the occasion, 
and Governor Lounsberry worthily accepted the statue on 
behalf of the State. It is greatly to be regretted that our 
knowledge of this noble martyr is so slight ; but we know 
enough to be sure that he merits the veneration of his coun- 
trymen. 



General Washington's Other Spies. 

The reader would scarcely expect at this late day to get 
new light upon the military character of General Washington. 
But, in truth, scarcely a month passes in which some of our 
busy historical students do not add to our knowledge of him. 
Recently Mr. H. P. Johnston pubHshed in the Magazine of 
America?! History some curious documents, hitherto un- 



IQ RE VOL UTIONAR V HEROES. 

known, exhibiting Washington's methods of procuring intel- 
hgence of the movements of the British army. 

Like a true general, he knew from the first all the import- 
ance of correct and prompt information. How necessary 
this is, is known to every one who remembers vividly the 
late war, particularly the first few months of it, before there 
was any good system of employing spies. Some terrible 
disasters could have been avoided if our generals had 
obtained better information of the opposing army's posi- 
tion, temper, and resources. 

An attentive study of the dispatches of Napoleon Bona- 
parte will show the importance which he attached to intelli- 
gence of this kind. He kept near him at headquarters an 
officer of rank who had nothing to do but to procure, record, 
and arrange all the military news which could be gleaned 
from newspapers, correspondents, and spies. The name of 
every regiment, detachment, and corps in the enemy's ser- 
vice was written upon a card. For the reception of these 
cards he had a case made with compartments and pigeon- 
holes. Every time a movement was reported the cards 
were shifted to correspond, so that he could know at a 
glance, when the cards were spread out upon a table, just 
how the troops of the enemy were distributed or massed. 
Every few days, the officer in charge had to send the em- 
peror a list of the changes which had taken place. This 
important matter was intrusted to a person who knew the 
languages of the different nations engaged in the war. 

It was Bonaparte's perfect organization of his spy system 
which enabled him to carry out his plan of always having a 
superior force at the point of attack. These two were the 
great secrets of his tactical system, namely, to have the best 
information and the most men at the decisive moment. 

Bonaparte was a trained soldier; but when Washington 
took command of the army in July, 1775, he had had very 



RE VOL U TIONAR V HE ROES. 17 

little experience of actual warfare. That little, however, 
was precisely of the kind to prove the value of correct infor- 
mation. For the want of it, he had seen General Braddock 
lead an army into the jaws of destruction, and he may have 
still possessed in some closet of Mount Vernon the coat 
with four bullet-holes in it which he had himself worn on 
that occasion. There are no warriors so skillful either at 
getting or concealing information as Indians, and all his 
experience hitherto had been in the Indian country and 
with warlike methods of an Indian character. 

Hence it is not surprising to discover that the first 
important act which he performed at Cambridge was to 
engage a person to go into the city of Boston for the pur- 
pose of procuring " intelligence of the enemy's movements 
and designs." An entry in his private note-book shows 
that he paid this unknown individual $333.33 in advance. 

A person who serves as a spy takes his life in his hand. 
It is a curious fact of human nature that nothing so surely 
reconciles a man to risking his life as a handsome sum in 
cash. General Washington, being perfectly aware of this 
fact, generally contrived to have a sum of what he called 
" hard money" at headquarters all through the war. Spies 
do not readily take to paper money. There are no Green- 
backers among them. In the letters of General Washington 
we find a great many requests to Congress for a kind of 
money that would pass current anywhere, and suffer no 
deterioration at the bottom of a river in a freshet. He pre- 
ferred gold as being the " most portable." He wrote in 1778 
from White Plains : 

" I have always found a difficulty in procuring intelli- 
gence by the means of paper money, and I perceive that it 
increases." 

It continued to increase, until I suppose, an offer of a 
million dollars in paper would not have induced a spy to 



18 RE VOL UriONAR V HEROES. 

enter the enemy's lines. In fact, the general himself sa,ys as 
much. In acknowledging the receipt of five hundred guineas 
for the secret service, he says that for want of a little gold 
he had been obliged to dispense with the services of some 
of his informers ; and adds : 

'* In some cases no consideration in paper money has 
been found sufficient to effect even an engagement to pro- 
cure intelligence ; and where it has been otherwise, the terms 
of service on account of the depreciation have been high, if 
not exorbitant." 

The time was not distant when paper money ceased to 
have any value, and Governor Jefferson of Virginia paid his 
whole salary for a year (a thousand pounds) for a second- 
hand side-saddle. 

During the later years of the war, the city of New York 
was the chief source of information concerning the designs 
and movements of the enemy. General Washington, as 
early as 1778, had always two or three correspondents there 
upon whose information he could rely if only they could 
send it out to him. Sometimes, when his ordinary corre- 
spondents failed him, he would send in a spy disguised as a 
farmer driving a small load of provisions, and who would 
bring out some family supplies, is tea, sugar, and calico, the 
better to conceal his real object. Often the spy zvas a 
farmer, and sometimes quite illiterate. As it was unsafe 
for him to have any written paper upon his person, he was 
required to learn by heart the precise message which he was 
to deliver in the city, as also the information which he re- 
ceived from the resident correspondent. 

The messenger frequently entered the city in the dis- 
guise of a peddler, a fact which suggested to Horace Greeley, 
when he was a printer's apprentice in Vermont, the idea of 
a story which he called *' The Peddler-Spy of the Revolution." 
I once had in my hand a considerable package of his manu- 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 19 

script of this tale ; but even as a boy he wrote so bad a 
hand that I could not read much of it. It is possible that 
this manuscript still exists. 

These methods of procuring intelligence in New York 
were all abused by real peddlers, who, when they were caught 
selling contraband goods to the enemy, pretended to be 
spies, and so escaped the penalty. At length the general 
chiefly depended upon two persons, one called " Culper 
Senior," and the other '' Culper Junior," who may have 
been father and son, but whose real names and qualities 
have never been disclosed. General Washington's secrecy 
was perfect. His most confidential officers, except one or 
two who had to be in the secret, never knew enough of 
these men to be able to designate them afterwards. When 
Benedict Arnold fled to New York after his treason, the 
American spies there were panic-stricken, as they very natu- 
rally concluded that Arnold must have been acquainted 
with their names and residences. General Washington was 
able to assure them that such was not the fact, and it is even 
probable that only one individual besides himself knew who 
they were. This was Major Benjamin Tallmadge, a native 
of Long Island, who frequently received the dispatches from 
New York and forwarded them to headquarters. The letters 
were commonly taken across the East River to Brooklyn ; 
thence to a point on the Sound about opposite to Rye or 
Portchester ; and were thence conveyed to camp. 

The dispatches from the Culpers were generally written 
in invisible ink, which was made legible by wetting the paper 
with another liquid. It was a matter of no small difficulty 
to keep the spies in New York supplied with the two fluids, 
and also with the guineas which were requisite for their 
maintenance. At first the spies wrote their letters on a 
blank sheet of paper ; but that would never do. General 
Washington wrote: 



20 RE VOL U TIONA R Y HEROES. 

"This circumstance alone Is sufficient to raise suspicions. 
A much better way is to write a letter in the Tory style, 
with some mixture of family matters, and, between the lines 
and on the remaining part of the sheet, communicate with 
the stain (the Invisible ink) the Intended intelligence." 

The Culpers served faithfully to the end of the war, and 
finally had the happiness of sending to the general the 
glorious news that the British army, the fleet, and the 
Tories were all evidently preparing to depart from the city, 
which they had held for seven years. Who were these 
adroit and faithful Culpers ? The secret seems to have died 
with Washington and Tallmadge. 



An Historic Christmas Night. 

" Christmas Day, at night, one hour before day, Is the 
time fixed upon for our attempt upon Trenton." 

In this confused way, December 23, 1776, General Wash- 
ington wrote from his camp, near Trenton Falls, to Colonel 
Reed, who was posted at Bristol, a few miles further down 
the Delaware, guarding an important ford. 

Before crossing over to the safe side of this wide stream, 
about twelve hundred feet wide at Trenton, he gave an order 
so important that, if he had forgotten or omitted it, nothing 
could have saved Philadelphia from being captured by the 
British. 

He directed that all the boats and barges of the whole 
region, for seventy miles, everything that could float and 
carry a man, should be taken over to the western bank of 
the river, and there carefully concealed, or closely watched. 

All the boats and canoes in the creeks and tributaries 



RE VOL UTIONAR V HEROES. 21 

were also secured, and hidden where they could do an enemy 
no good. There were many large barges then upon the 
Delaware, used for transporting hay and other produce, 
some of which could have carried over half a regiment of 
foot at every trip. 

All of these were hidden or guarded, and as soon as 
General Washington had got his own little army over, he 
posted a guard at every ford, and kept trustworthy men go- 
ing up and down the river, to see that the boats were safe. 

If any one desires to see General Washington when he 
displayed his manhood and military genius at their best, let 
him study the records of his life for the month of December, 
1776. The soldier, the statesman, the citizen, the brave, in- 
domitable man, each in turn appears, and shines in the try- 
ing hours of that month. 

Only the River Delaware separated the hostile armies, 
and the enemy waited but for the ice to form, in order to 
add Philadelphia to the list of his summer conquests. 

Congress had adjourned from Philadelphia to Baltimore. 
New Jersey was ravaged by ruthless bands of soldiers. Dis- 
affection was on every side. The winter, prematurely cold, 
threatened to make an ice-bridge over the stream in ten days, 
and within about the same time the terms of most of Gen 
eral Washington's troops would expire, and he might be left 
without even the semblance of an army. *' Dire necessity," 
as he said, compelled a movement of some kind. 

Christmas had come. It was a cold, freezing day. There 
was already a large amount of ice floating by, and heaped up 
along the shore, in many places rendering access to the water 
impossible, and in all places difficult. 

About four o'clock in the afternoon, the troops were 
drawn up in parade before their camp at Trenton Falls. 
They were about twenty-four hundred in number. Every 
man carried three days' cooked rations, and an ample supply 



22 ' REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 

of heavy ammunition. Few of the soldiers were adequately 
clothed, and their shoes were in such bad condition that 
Major Wilkinson, who rode behind them to the landing-place, 
reports that " the snow on the ground was tinged here and 
there with blood." The cold was increasing. The ice was 
forming rapidly. The wind was high, and there were signs 
of a snow-storm. 

Boats were in readiness, and about sunset the troops be- 
gan to cross. The passage was attended with such difficul- 
ties as would have deterred men less resolute. The current 
of the river was exceedingly swift, the cold intense, and, 
although it was the night of a full moon, the thick snow- 
clouds made the night dark. 

Colonel Knox, afterward General Knox of the Artillery 
and Secretary of War, rendered efficient service on this oc- 
casion. Soldiers from Yankee Marblehead manned many of 
the boats, and lent the aid of their practiced skill and wiry 
muscle. Every man worked with a will, and yet it was three 
o'clock in the morning before the troops were all over. 

It was four o'clock before they were formed in two bodies 
and began to march, one division close along the river, and 
the other on a parallel road, some little distance in the coun- 
try. 

It had been snowing nearly all night, and about the time 
when the troops were set in motion the storm increased, the 
wind rose, and hail was mingled with the snow. The storm 
blew in the faces of the men and they had nine miles to go 
before reaching Trenton, where fourteen hundred of the 
Hessian troops were posted under Colonel Rahl. 

Soon after, it was whispered about among the men that 
the fuses of the best muskets were wet and could not be dis- 
charged. Upon this being reported to General Sullivan, he 
glanced around at Captain St. Clair and asked : '' What is to 
be done ?" 



RE VOL UTIONAR Y HEROES. 23 

" You have nothing for it," repHed St. Clair, " but to 
push on and charge." 

The gallant Stark of Vermont was in command of the 
advance guard, and perhaps near him marched the father of 
Daniel Webster. Colonel Stark told his men to get their 
muskets in the best order they could as they marched, and 
an ofificer was sent to inform General Washington of this 
mishap. 

*' Tell your General," said the Commander-in-chief, "to 
use the bayonet and penetrate into the town ; the town must 
be taken, and I am resolved to take it." 

The soldiers overheard this reply, as it was given by the 
aide to General Sullivan, and quietly fixed bayonets v/ithout 
waiting for an order. 

About eight in the morning both parties arrived near the 
village of Trenton. General Washington, who rode near the 
front of his column, asked a man who was chopping wood 
by the roadside : 

" Which way is the Hessian Picket ?" 

" I don't know," replied the Jerseyman, unwilling to 
commit himself. 

" You may speak," said one of the American officers, " for 
that is General Washington." 

The man raised his hands to heaven and exclaimed : 
"God bless and prosper you, sir! The picket is in that 
house, and the sentry stands near that tree." 

General Washington instantly ordered an advance. As 
his men marched rapidly toward the village with a cheer, 
Colonel Stark and his band answered the shout and rushed 
upon the enemy. 

The Hessians made a brief attempt at resistance; first, 
by a wild and useless fire from windows, and then b}^ an at- 
tempt to form in the main street of the village. This was 
at once frustrated by Captain T. Forest, who commanded 



24 REVOLUTIOXARY HEROES. 

the battery of six guns which had caused much trouble and 
delay in crossing the river. 

At the same time Captain William Washington and 
Lieutenant James Monroe, afterward President, ran forward 
with a party to where the Hessians were attempting to estab- 
lish a battery, drove the artillerists from their guns, and cap- 
tured two of them, just as they were ready to be discharged. 

Both these young officers were wounded. Colonel Stark 
during the brief combat, as Wilkinson reports, " dealt death 
wherever he found resistance, and broke down all opposition 
before him." 

Colonel Rahl,who commanded the post, was roused from 
a deep sleep by the noise of Washington's fire. He did all 
that was possible to form his panic-stricken and disordered 
troops, but soon fell from his horse mortally wounded. From 
that moment, the day was lost to the Hessians. 

During the combat. General Washington remained near 
Captain Forest's battery, directing the fire. He had just 
ordered the whole battery, charged with canister, to be 
turned upon the retreating enemy, when Captain Forest, 
pointing to the flagstaff near Rahl's headquarters, cried, " Sir, 
they have struck !" 

'' Struck!" exclaimed General Washington. 

" Yes," said Forest ; *' their colors are down." 

'^ So they are !" said the commander. 

General Washington galloped toward them, followed by 
all the artillerymen, who wished to see the ceremony of sur- 
render. He rode up to where Colonel Rahl had fallen. The 
wounded man, assisted by soldiers on each side of him, got 
upon his feet, and presented his sword to the victor. 

At this moment Wilkinson, who had been sent away with 
orders, returned to his general, and witnessed the surrender. 
Washington took him by the hand, and said, his countenance 
beaming with joy: " Major Wilkinson, this is a glorious day 
for our country!" 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 



S5 



In a moment, however, the unfortunate Rahl, who stood 
near, pale, covered with blood, and still bleeding, appeared 
to be asking for the assistance which his wounds required. 

He was at once conveyed to the house of a good Quaker 
family near by, where he was visited by General Washing- 
ton in the course of the day, who did all in his power to 
soothe the feelings of the dying soldier. 

This action, reckoning from the first gun, lasted but thir- 
ty-five minutes. On the American side two officers were 
wounded, two privates were killed, four were wounded, and 
one was frozen to death. Four stands of colors were 
captured, besides twelve drums, six brass field-pieces, and 
twelve hundred muskets. The prisoners were nine hundred 
and forty-six in number, of whom seventy-eight were wounded. 
Seventeen of the Hessians were killed, of whom six were 
officers. 

We can scarcely imagine the joy which this victory gave 
to the people everywhere, as the news slowly made its way. 
They were in the depths of discouragement. There had been 
moments when Washington himself almost gave up Phila- 
delphia for lost, and it was from Philadelphia that he drew 
his most essential supplies. 

The capture of the post at Trenton, a thing trifling in it- 
self, changed the mood and temper of both parties, and 
proved to be the turning-point of the war. It saved Phila- 
delphia for that season, freed New Jersey from the ravages 
of an insolent and ruthless foe, checked disaffection in minds 
base or timid, and gave Congress time to prepare for a re- 
newal of the strife as soon as the spring should open. 

It was a priceless Christmas present which the general 
and his steadfast band of patriots gave their country in 1776, 
and it was followed, a week later, by a New Year's gift of 
similar purport — the capture of the British post at Princeton. 



26 kEVOLUTIONAkV HEROES. 



John Adams and the Question of Independence. 

It was an act of something more than courage to vote 
for Independence in 1776. It was an act of far-sighted wis- 
dom as well, and it was done with the utmost possible 
deliberation. 

The last great debate upon the subject took place on 
Monday, the first of July, 1776. Fifty-one members were 
present that morning, a number that must have pretty well 
filled the square, not very large, room in Independence 
Hall, which many of our readers visited during the Centen- 
nial year. 

No spectators were present beyond the officers of the 
House. John Hancock was in the chairman's seat. In the 
room overhead the legislature of Pennsylvania was in session. 
Out of doors, in the public squares and grounds adjacent, 
troops were drilling, as they had been every day for months 
past, and a great force of men was at work fortifying the 
Delaware below the city. 

This day had been set apart for the final and decisive 
consideration of Independence. The draft of the Declar- 
ation, as written by Mr. Jefferson, had been handed in three 
days before, and lay upon the table — perhaps visibly so, as 
well as in a parliamentary sense. 

The question had been discussed, and discussed again, 
and again discussed, until it seemed to the more ardent 
minds a waste of breath to argue it further; but it requires 
time, much time, as well as great patience, to bring a rep- 
resentative body to the point of deciding irrevocably a 
matter so momentous, involving their own and their coun- 
try's destiny. 

Otight we to sever the tie which binds us to the mother 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. %^ 

country? That was not so very difficult to answer; but 
there was another question : Can we ? Britain is mighty, 
and what are we ? Thirteen colonies of farmers, with little 
money, no allies, no saltpetre even, and all the Indians open 
to British gold and British rum. Then there was another 
question : Will the people at home sustain us? 

At nine o'clock President Hancock rapped to order. The 
first business was the reading of letters addressed to the 
Congress, which had arrived since the adjournment on 
Saturday. One of these, from General Washington in New 
York, contained news calculated to alarm all but the most 
stalwart spirits : Canada quite lost to the cause ; Arnold's 
army in full, though orderly, retreat from that province ; a 
powerful British fleet just arriving in New York harbor, 
three or four ships drifting in daily, and now forty-five sail 
all at once signalled from Sandy Hook. 

" Some say more," added General Washington, '* and I 
suppose the whole fleet will be in within a day or two." 

The whole fleet ! As if these were not enough ; and, in 
truth, the number soon reached a hundred and twenty, with 
thousands of red-coats in them abundantly supplied with 
every requisite. Washington's own army numbered on that 
day seven thousand seven hundred and fifty-four men, of 
whom, as he reported, eight hundred had no guns at all, 
fourteen hundred had bad guns, and half the infantry no 
bayonets. Add to this fifty-three British ships just arrived 
at Charleston, with General Clinton's expedition on board. 

We must bear this news in mind in order to appreciate 
what followed in Congress that day. When General Wash- 
ington's letter had been read, the House went into commit- 
tee of the whole, " to take into consideration the question 
of Independence." 

The boldest man upon that floor could not avoid feeling 
that the crisis was serious and the issue doubtful. As if to 



2g REVOLUTIONARY HEROES, 

deepen this Impression, there soon rose to address the House 
John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, a good man and a patriot, 
an able speaker and better writer, but rich, not of robust 
health, and conservative almost to timidity. 

From the first, while opposing the arbitrary measures of 
the King, he had been equally opposed to a Declaration of 
Independence ; and to-day, refreshed by the rest of Sunday, 
and feeling that it was now or never with his party, he spoke 
with all the force and solemnity of which he was capable. 

" I value," said he, '' the love of my country as I ought, 
but I value my country more, and I desire this illustrious 
assembly to w^itness the integrity, if not the policy, of my 
conduct. The first campaign will be decisive of the contro- 
versy. 

" The declaration will not strengthen us by one man, or 
by the least supply, w^hile it may expose our soldiers to addi- 
tional cruelties and outrages. Without some preliminary 
trials of our strength we ought not to commit our country 
upon an alternative where to recede would be infamy, and 
to persist might be destruction." 

In this strain he spoke long, urging all the reasons for 
delay which an ingenious mind could devise, and clothing 
his argument with the charm of a fine literary style. 

He ceased. There was a pause. No one seemed willing 
to break the silence, until it began to be embarrassing, and 
then painful. 

Many eyes were turned toward John Adams, who for 
eighteen months had been the chief spokesman of the party 
for independence. He had advocated the measure before 
Thomas Paine had written " Common Sense," and when it 
had not one influential friend in Philadelphia. Early in the 
previous year, when it first became known by the accidental 
publicity of a letter that he favored the Declaration of In- 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 29 

dependence, the solid men of Philadelphia shunned him as 
if he had had the leprosy. 

" I walked the streets of Philadelphia," he once wrote, 
" in solitude, borne down by the weight of care and un- 
popularity," and Dr. Rush mentions that he saw him thus 
walking the streets alone, " an object of nearly universal 
scorn and detestation." 

But he was on the gaining side. The cruel burning of 
Falmouth on the coast of Maine weaned New England from 
the mother country, and the burning of Norfolk completed 
the same office for Virginia. 

To-day he stood with a majority of the people behind 
him. To-day he spoke the sentiments of his country. To- 
day he uttered the words which every man on the floor but 
John Dickinson wished to hear uttered. 

Yet he did not immediately rise ; for he wished some one 
else, some one less committed to Independence than he was, 
to take the lead in that day's debate. At length, however, 
since every one else hung back, he got upon his feet to 
answer Mr. Dickinson. 

The speech which he delivered on this occasion was 
deemed by those who heard it the most powerful effort of 
his life, though he had made no special preparation for it 
beforehand. He had thought of the subject from his college 
days, and had never ceased to regard the Independence of 
his country as only a question of time. During his profes- 
sional life, it had been the frequent theme of his reflections, 
and he was perfectly familiar with every phase of it. 

'' This is the first time in my life," said he, " that I have 
ever wished for the talents and eloquence of the ancient 
orators of Greece and Rome, for I am very sure that none 
of them ever had before him a question of more importance 
to bis country and to the world. They would, probably^ 



30 RE VOL U TIONA R ] ^ HEROES. 

Upon less occasions than this, have begun by solemn in- 
vocations to their divinities for assistance. 

"But the question before me appears so simple that I 
have confidence enough in the plain understanding and 
common-sense that have been given me to believe that I 
can answer, to the satisfaction of the House, all the argu- 
ments which have been produced, notwithstanding the 
abilities which have been displayed and the eloquence with 
which they have been enforced." 

Proceeding then to the discussion of the question, he 
dwelt strongly upon the point that, as the colonies had gone 
too far to recede, as they had already been put outside of 
British law, the Declaration of Independence could not pos- 
sibly make their condition worse, but would give them some 
obvious and solid advantages. 

Now, they were rebels against their king, and could not 
negotiate on equal terms with a sovereign power. The 
moment they declared Independence, they would be them- 
selves a sovereignty. The measure, he contended, would be 
as prudent as it was just. It would help them in many 
ways and hinder them in no way. 

We have no report of this celebrated oration, and can 
only gather its purport from allusions scattered here and 
there in the letters of those who heard it. We know, how- 
ever, that Mr. Adams dwelt forcibly upon this one position, 
that the king himself having absolved them from their 
allegiance, and having made unprovoked war upon them, 
the proposed Declaration would be simply a proclamation 
to the world of a state of things already existing. 

Many members followed. When the debate had pro- 
ceeded for a long time, three new members from New Jersey 
came in : Richard Stockton, Dr. Witherspoon and Francis 
Hopkinson. These gentlemen, on learning the business 
before the House, expressed a strong desire to hear a recap- 



RE I 'PL U TIONA R } ^ HEROES. 31 

itulation of the arguments which had been brought for- 
ward. 

Again there was an awkward silence. Again all eyes were 
turned upon John Adams. Again he shrank from taking 
the floor. Mr. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina came 
to him and said : 

" Nobody will speak but you upon this subject. You 
have all the topics so ready that you must satisfy the gentle- 
men from New Jersey." 

Mr. Adams replied that he was ashamed to repeat what 
he had said twenty times before. As the new members still 
insisted on hearing a recapitulation, he at length rose once 
more, and gave a concise summary of the whole debate. 
The New Jersey gentlemen said they were fully satisfied 
and were ready for the question. It was now six o'clock in 
the evening. The debate had continued all day, nine hours, 
without the least interval for rest or refeshment, and during 
that long period, as Mr. Jefferson wrote at a later day, ''all 
the powers of the soul had been distended with the magni- 
tude of the object." 

Mr. Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, then rose, and 
asked as a favor that the voting be deferred until the next 
morning, as he and his fellow-members wished still further 
to deliberate. 

The request was granted ; the House adjourned ; the 
hungry and exhausted members went to their homes. 

The next morning members met in a cheerful mood, for 
it was well ascertained that every colony was prepared to 
vote for Independence. When Mr. Adams reached the State 
House door, he had the pleasure of meeting Caesar Rodney, 
still in his riding-boots, for he had ridden all night from 
Delaware to vote on the momentous question. Mr. Adams, 
it is said, had sent an express at his own expense eighty 



32 RE VOL U TIONAR Y HEROES. 

miles to summon him, and there he was to greet him at the 
State House door. 

The great question was speedily put, when every State 
but New York voted for declaring independence, and that 
State's adherence was delayed a few days only by a series 
of accidents. 

What a happy man was John Adams, and what a tri- 
umphant letter was that which he wrote to his noble wife on 
the 3d of July, telling her the great news that Congress had 
passed a resolution, without one dissenting colony, ''that 
these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and 
independent States." Then he continued in the passage so 
often quoted : 

" The second day of July, 1776, v/ill be the most memor- 
able epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe 
that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the 
great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated 
as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God 
Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and 
parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and 
illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, 
from this time forward forevermore." 

But, no; not on July second. The transaction was not 
yet complete. As soon as the vote was recorded, Mr. Jef- 
ferson's draft of the Declaration was taken from the table, 
and discussed paragraph by paragraph. Many alterations 
were made, thirty four in all, most of them for the better. 
This discussion lasted the rest of that day, all the next, and 
most of the next, which was the fourth. Late in that after- 
noon the members present signed the document, and so the 
day we celebrate is the FOURTH OF JULY. 



RE I 'PL UTIONA R V HEROES. 33 



Anecdotes of John Adams. 

The first office ever held by President John Adams was 
that of Roadmaster to his native town. The young barris- 
ter, as he himself confesses, was very indignant at being 
elected to a post, with the duties of which he was unac- 
quainted, and which he considered beneath his pretensions. 
His friend, Dr. Savil, explained to him that he had nomi- 
nated him to the office to prevent his being elected con- 
stable. 

" They make it a rule," said the Doctor, '' to compel 
every man to serve either as constable or surveyor of the 
highways, or to pay a fine." 

"They.miglit as well," said Mr. Adams, "have chosen 
any boy in school, for I know nothing of the business ; but 
since they have chosen me at a venture, I will accept it in 
the same manner, and find out my duty as I can." 

Accordingly he went to plowing, ditching, and blowing 
rocks and built a new stone bridge over a stream. He took 
infinite pains with his bridge, and employed the best work- 
men ; " but," says he, " the next spring brought down a 
flood that threw my bridge all into ruins." The blame, how- 
ever, fell upon the workmen, and all the town, he tells us, 
agreed that he had executed his office with " impartiality, 
diligence, and spirit." 

Mr. Adams was an extremely passionate man. One 
evening, just before the breaking out of the Revolution, 
while spending an evening in company with an English gen- 
tleman, the conversation turned upon the aggressions of the 
mother country. He became furious with anger. He said 
there was no justice left in Britain ; that he wished for war, 
and that the whole Bourbon family was upon the back of 
Great Britain. He wished that anything might happen to 



34 ^A' J 'PL UTIONAR Y HEROES. 

them, and, as the clergy prayed for enemies in time of war, 
that " they might be brought to reason or to ruin." When 
he went home he was exceedingly repentant for having lost 
his temper, and wrote in his diary the following remarks : 

" I cannot but reflect upon myself with severity for these 
rash, inexperienced, boyish, wrong, and awkward expres- 
sions. A man who has no better government of his tongue, 
no more command of his temper, is unfit for anything but 
children's play, and the company of boys. A character can 
never be supported, if it can be raised, without a good, a 
great share of self-government. Such flights of passion, such 
starts of imagination, though they may strike a few of the 
fiery and inconsiderate, yet they sink a man with the wise. 
They expose him to danger, as well as familiarity, contempt, 
and ridicule." 

One of the most interesting events in the life of John 
Adams was his nomination of George Washington to the 
command of the Revolutionary armies. One day, in 1775, 
when Congress was full of anxiety concerning the army near 
Boston, and yet hesitated to adopt it as their own, fearing 
to take so decisive a step, John and Samuel Adams were 
walking up and down the State House yard in Philadelphia 
before the opening of the session, and were conversing upon 
the situation. 

" W^hat shall we do?" asked Samuel Adams, at length. 

His kinsman said : " You know I have taken great pains 
to get our colleagues to agree upon some plan that we might 
be unanimous upon ; but you know they will pledge them- 
selves to nothing ; but I am determined to take a step which 
shall compel them, and all the other members of Congress, 
to declare themselves for or against soinctJiijig. I am deter- 
mined this morning to make a direct motion that Congress 
shall adopt the army before Boston, and appoint Colonel 
Washington commander of it," 



RE VOL UTIONA R Y HEROES. 35 

Samuel Adams looked grave at this proposition, but said 
nothing. When Congress had assembled, John Adams rose, 
and, in a short speech, represented the state of the colonies, 
the uncertainty in the minds of the people, the distresses of 
the army, the danger of its disbanding, the difficulty of col- 
lecting another if it should disband, and the probability that 
the British army would take advantage of our delays, march 
out of Boston, and spread desolation as far as they could go. 
He concluded by moving that Congress adopt the army at 
Cambridge and appoint a general. 

'* Although," he continued, '' this is not the proper time 
to nominate a general, yet, as I have reason to believe that 
this is a point of the greatest difficulty, I have no hesitation 
to declare that I have but one gentleman in my mind for 
that important command, and that is a gentleman from Vir- 
ginia, who is among us, and is very well known to all of us; 
a gentleman whose skill and experience as an officer, whose 
independent fortune, great talents, and excellent universal 
character will command the approbation of all America, and 
unite the cordial exertions of ali the colonies better than any 
other person in the Union." 

When Mr. Adams began this speech. Colonel Washing- 
ton was present ; but as soon as the orator pronounced the 
words '' Gentleman from Virginia," he darted through the 
nearest door into the library. Mr. Samuel Adams seconded 
the miotion which, as we all know, was, on a future day, 
unanimously carried. Mr. Adams relates that no one was 
so displeased with this appointment as John Hancock, the 
President of Congress. 

'' While I was speaking," says John Adams, " on the state 
of the colonies, he heard me with visible pleasure ; but when 
I came to describe Washington for the commander, I never 
remarked a more sudden and striking change of countenance. 



36 RE VOL U TIONAR Y HEROES. 

Mortification and resentment were expressed as forcibly as 
his face could exhibit them." 

Hancock, in fact, who was somewhat noted as a militia 
ofificer in Massachusetts, was vain enough to aspire to the 
command of the colonial forces. 

They had a fashion, during the Revolutionary war, John 
Adams tells us, of turning pictures of George III. upside 
down in the houses of patriots. Adams copied into his diary 
some lines which wpre written *' under one of these topsey- 
turvey kings" : 

Behold the man who had it in his power 

To make a kingdom tremble and adore. 

Intoxicate with folly, see his head 

Placed where the meanest of his subjects tread. 

Like Lucifer the giddy tyrant fell, 

He lifts his heel to Heaven, but points his head to Hell. 

It is evident, from more than one passage in the diary of 
John Adams, that he, too, in his heart, turned against Gen 
Washington during the gloomy hours of the Revolution. 
At least he thought him unfit for the command. Just be- 
fore the surrender of Burgoyne, Adams wrote in his diary 
the following passage : 

" Gates seems to be acting the same timorous, defensive 
part which has involved us in so many disasters. Oh, 
Heaven grant us one great soul ! One leading mind would 
extricate the best cause from that ruin which seems to await 
it for the want of it. We have as good a cause as ever was 
fought for: we have great resources; the people are well 
tempered ; one active, masterly capacity would bring order 
out of this confusion, and save this country." 

Thus it is always in war-time. When the prospect is 
gloomy, and when disasters threaten to succeed disasters, 
there is a general distrust of the general in command^ 



RE VOL UTiONAk V HEROES. 37 

though at that very time he may be exhibiting greater quah- 
ties and greater talents than ever before. 

John Adams tells us the reason why Thomas Jefferson, 
out of a committee of five, was chosen to write the Declara- 
tion of Independence. 

" Writings of his," says Mr. Adams, '' were handed about, 
remarkable for the peculiar felicity of expression. Though 
a silent member in Congress, he was so frank, explicit and 
decisive upon committees and in conversation (not even 
Samuel Adams was more so) that he soon seized upon my 
heart ; and upon this occasion I gave him my vote, and did 
all in my power to procure the votes of others. I think he 
had one more vote than any other, and that placed him at 
the head of the committee. I had the next highest number, 
and that placed me the second. The committee met, dis- 
cussed the subject, and then appointed Mr. Jefferson and 
me to make the draft, because we were the two first upon 
the list." 

When this sub-committee of two had their first meeting, 
Jefferson urged Mr. Adams to make the draft ; whereupon 
the following conversation occurred between them : 

" I will not," said Mr. Adams. 

" You should do it," said Jefferson. 

" Oh no," repeated Adams. 

" Why will you not?" asked Jefferson. '* You ought to 
do it." 

" I will not," rejoined Adams. 

" Why?" again asked Jefferson. 

'' Reasons enough," said Adams. 

*' What can be your reasons?" inquired Jefferson. 

*' Reason first — you are a Virginian, and a Virginian 
ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason sec- 
ond — I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are 



3g RE VOL UTIONA k \ ' //£/?0£S . 

very much otherwise. Reason third — you can write tetl- 
times better than I can." 

** Well," said Jefferson, '' if you are decided, I will do as 
well as I can." 

''Very well," said Mr. Adams; "when you have drawn 
it up, we will have a meeting." 

Thus it was that Thomas Jefferson became the author of 
this celebrated document. Mr. Adams informs us that the 
original draft contained " a vehement philippic against negro 
slavery," which Congress ordered to be stricken out. 

Mr. Adams relates an amusing story of his sleeping one 
night with Doctor Franklin, when they were on their way 
lo hold their celebrated conference w^th Lord Howe on 
Staten Island. It was at Brunswick, in New Jersey, where 
the tavern was so crowded that two of the commissioners 
were put into one room, which w^as little larger than the bed, 
and which had no chimney and but one small window. The 
window was open when the two members went up to bed, 
which Mr. Adams seeing, and being afraid of the night air, 
shut it close. 

" Oh," said Doctor Franklin, " don't shut the window, 
we shall be suffocated." 

Mr. Adams answered that he was afraid of the evening 
air; to which Doctor Franklin leplied : 

" The air within this chamber will soon be, and indeed 
is now, worse than that without doors. Come, open the 
window and come to bed, and I will convince you. I be- 
lieve you are not acquainted wMth my theory of colds." 

Mr. Adams complied with both these requests. He tells 
us that when he was in bed, the Doctor began to harangue 
upon air, and cold, and respiration, and perspiration, with 
which he was so much amused that he soon fell asleep. It 
does not appear that any ill consequences followed from 
their breathing during the night the pure air of heaven. 



H^ VOL UTIONA R V HEROES. gg 

The Writing and Signing of the Declaration 
OF Independence. 

We happen to know what kind of weather it was in Phil 
adelphia on Thursday, the Fourth of July, 1776. Mr. Jef- 
ferson was in the habit, all his life, of recording the temper- 
ature three times a day, and not unfrequently four times. 
He made four entries in his weather record on this birthday 
of the nation, as if anticipating that posterity would be 
curious to learn every particular of an occasion so interest- 
ing. At six that morning the mercury marked sixty-eight 
degrees. At nine, just before going round to the State 
House to attend the session of Congress, he recorded sev- 
enty-two and a half degrees. At one, while he was at home 
during the recess for dinner, he found the mercury at sev- 
enty-six. At nine in the evening, when the great deed had 
been done, the instrument indicated seventy-three and a 
half degrees. 

From another entry of Mr. Jefferson's we learn that he 
paid for a new thermometer on that day. The following 
are the three entries in his expense-book for July fourth, 
1776: 

" Paid Sparhawk for a thermometer £'}, 15s. 

Pd. for 7 pr. women's gloves 27s, 

Gave in charity is. 6d." 

The price that he paid for his thermometer was equiva- 
lent to about twenty dollars in gold; and as Mr. Jefferson 
was not likely to spend his money for an elaborately deco- 
rated thermometer, we may infer that instruments of that 
nature were at least ten times as costly then as they are 
now. An excellent standard thermometer at the present 
time can be bought for five dollars, and the sum which Mr. 
Jefferson paid in 1776 was fully equal, in purchasing power, 
to fifty dollars in our present currency. 



40 HE VOL U TIONA R V N EI? PES . 

Mr. Jefferson lived then on the south side of Market 
street, not far from the corner of Seventh, in Philadelphia. 
As it was the only house then standing in that part of the 
street, he was unable in after years to designate the exact 
spot, though he was always under the impression that it was 
a corner house, either on the corner of Seventh street or 
very near it. The owner of the house, named Graaf, was a 
young man, the son of a German, and then newly married. 
Soon after coming to Philadelphia, Mr. Jefferson hired the 
whole of the second floor, ready furnished ; and as the floor 
consisted of but two rooms — a parlor and a bed-room — we 
may conjecture that the house was of no great size. It was 
in that parlor that he wrote the Declaration of Independence. 

The writing-desk upon which he wrote it exists in Bos- 
ton, and is still possessed by the venerable friend and con- 
nection of Mr. Jefferson to whom he gave it. The note 
which the author of the Declaration wrote when he sent this 
writing-desk to the husband of one of his grand-daughters, 
has a particular interest for us at this present time. It was 
written in 1825, nearly fifty years after the Declaration was 
signed, about midway between that glorious period and the 
Centennial. It is as follows : 

'' Thomas Jefferson gives this writing-desk to Joseph 
Coolidge, Jr., as a memorial of affection. It was made from 
a drawing of his own by Benj. Randolph, cabinet-maker, at 
Philadelphia, with whom he first lodged on his arrival in 
that city, in May, 1776, and is the identical one on which he 
wrote the Declaration of Independence. Politics as well as 
religion has its superstitions. These, gaining strength with 
time, may one day give imaginary value to this relic for its 
associations with the birth of the Great charter of our Inde- 
pendence." 

The note given above, although penned when Mr. Jeffer- 
son was eighty-two years of age, is written in a small, firm 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 41 

hand, and is quite as legible as the type which the reader is 
now perusing. There is no indication of old age in the 
writing; but I observe that he has spelt the most important 
word of the note French fashion, thus : '' Independance!" It 
certainly is remarkable that the author of the Declara- 
tion of Independence should have made a mistake in 
spelling the word. Nor can it be said that the erro- 
neous letter was a slip of the pen, because the word occurs 
twice in the note, and both times the last syllable is spelt 
with an a. Mr. Jefferson was a very exact man, and yet, 
like most men of that day, he used capitals and omitted 
them with an apparent carelessness. In the above note, for 
example, the following words occur, '' Great charter." Here 
he furnishes the adjective with a capital, and reduces his 
noun to the insignificance of a small letter. 

The Declaration was written, I suppose, about the middle 
of June; and, while he was writing it, Philadelphia was all 
astir with warlike preparation. Seldom has a peaceful city, 
a city of Quakers and brotherly love, undergone such a trans- 
formation as Philadelphia did in a few months. As Mr. 
Jefferson sat at his little desk composing the Declaration, 
with the windows open at that warm season, he must have 
heard the troops drilling in Independence Square. Twice a 
day they were out drilling, to the number of two thousand 
men, and more. Perhaps he was looking out of the window 
on the eleventh of June, the very day after the appointment 
of the committee to draw up the Declaration, when the 
question of independence was voted upon by the whole 
body of Philadelphia volunteers, and they all voted for inde- 
pendence except twenty-nine men, four officers and twenty- 
five privates. One of these objectors made a scene upon 
the parade. He was so much opposed to the proceeding 
that he would not put the question to his company. This 
refusal, said the newspaper of that week, " Gave great um- 



42 RE VOL UTIONAR Y HEROES. 

brage to the men, one of whom rephed to him in a genteel 
and spirited manner. 

Besides this morning and afternoon drill in the public 
squares of the town, preparations were going forward to close 
the river against the ascent of a hostile fleet. Dr. Franklin, 
as I have related, had twenty or thirty row galleys in readi- 
ness, which were out on the river practising every day, 
watched by approving groups on the shore. Men were at 
work on the forts five miles below the city, where, also. Dr. 
Franklin was arranging his three rows of iron-barbed beams 
in the channel, which were called cJievaitx de frise. In a 
letter of that day, written to Captain Richard Varick, of 
New York, I find these French words spelt thus : '' Shiver 
de freeses." Committees were going about Philadelphia 
during this spring buying lead from house to house at six- 
pence a pound, taking even the lead clock-weights and 
giving iron ones in exchange. So destitute was the army of 
powder and ball that Dr. Franklin seriously proposed arm- 
ing some regiments with javelins and crossbows. 

Mr. Jefferson was ready with his draft in time to present 
it to Congress on the first of July ; but it was on the second, 
as I conjecture, that the great debate occurred upon it, 
when the timid men again put forward the argument that 
the country was not yet ripe for so decisive a measure. Mr. 
Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, a true patriot, but a most timor- 
ous and conservative gentleman, who had opposed Inde- 
pendence from the beginning, delivered a long and eloquent 
speech against the measure. 

The author of the Declaration used to relate after dinner 
to his guests at Monticello, that the conclusion of the busi- 
ness was hastened by a ridiculous cause. Near the hall was 
a livery stable, from which swarms of flies came in at the 
open windows, and attacked the trouserless legs of members, 
who wore the silk stockings of the period, Lashing the 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 43 

flies with their handkerchiefs, they became at length unable 
to bear a longer delay, and the decisive vote was taken. 
On the Monday following, in the presence of a great 
crowd of people assembled in Independence Square, it was 
read by Captain Ezekiel Hopkins, the first commodore 
of the American Navy, then just home from a cruise, dur- 
ing which he had captured eighty cannon, a large quantity 
of ammunition, and stores, and two British vessels. He was 
selected to read the Declaration from the remarkable power 
of his voice. Seven weeks later, the Declaration was 
engrossed upon parchment, which was signed by the 
members, and which now hangs in the Patent Office at 
Washington. 



Robert Morris, 

The Financier of the Revolution. 

Robert Morris, who had charge of the financial affairs 
of the thirteen States during the Revolutionary War, and 
afterwards extended his business beyond that of any other 
person in the country, became bankrupt at last, spent four 
years of his old age in a debtor's prison, and owed his sub- 
sistance, during his last illness, to a small annuity rescued 
by his wife from the wreck of their fortunes. 

Morris was English by birth, a native of Lancashire, 
where he lived until he was thirteen years of age. Emi- 
grating to Philadelphia in 1747, he was placed in the count- 
ing-house of one of the leading merchants, with whose son 
he entered into partnership before he had completed his 
twenty-first year. This young firm, Willing, Morris & Co., 
embarked boldly and ably in commerce, until at the begin- 



44. RE VOL U TIONA R Y HEROES. 

nine of the Revolution it was the wealthiest commercial firm 

o 

in the Colonies south of New England, and only surpassed 
in New England by two. When the contention arose be- 
tween the Mother country and the colonies, his interest was 
to take the side of the Mother country. But he sided with 
the Colonies — to the great detriment of his private business. 
He served in Congress during nearly the whole of the War, 
and was almost constantly employed in a struggle with the 
financial difficulties of the situation. 

I do not see how the revolution could have been main- 
tained unless some such person could have been found to 
undertake the finances. When all other resources gave out 
he never refused to employ his private resources, as well as 
the immense, unquestioned credit of his firm, in aid of the 
cause. On several occasions he borrowed money for the use 
of the government, pledging all his estate for the re pay- 
ment. In 1780, aided by the powerful pen of Thomas 
Paine, he established a bank through which three million 
rations were provided for the army. Fortunately, he was 
reputed to be much richer than he was, and thus he was 
several times enabled to furnish an amount of assistance far 
beyond the resources of any private individual then living in 
America. 

His greatest achievement was in assisting General Wash- 
ington in 1 78 1 to transport his army to Virginia, and to 
maintain it there during the operations against Lord Corn- 
wallis. In the spring of that year the revolution appeared 
to be all but exhausted. The treasury was not merely 
empty, but there was a floating debt upon it of two millions 
and a half, and the soldiers were clamorous for their pay. 
The Superintendent of Finance rose to the occasion. He 
issued his own notes to the amount of fourteen hundred 
thousand dollars by which the army was supplied with pro 
visions and the campaign carried on to the middle of August, 



' REVOLUTlONAkV HEROES. 45 

Then General Washington, in confidence, revealed to Robert 
Morris his intention to transport his army to Virginia. To 
effect this operation the general required all the light vessels 
of the Delaware and Chesapeake, six hundred barrels of 
provisions for the march, a vast supply in Virginia, five 
hundred guineas in gold for secret service, and a month's 
pay in silver for the army. When this information reached 
the superintendent he was already at his wits' end, and 
really supposed that he had exhausted every resource. 

" I am sorry to inform you," he wrote to the general, 
''that I find money-matters in as bad a situation as possible." 

And he mentions in his diary of the same date that, 
during a recent visit to camp, he had had with him one 
hundred and fifty guineas ; but so many officers came to him 
with claims upon the government, that he thought it best 
to satisfy none, and brought the money home again. After 
unheard-of exertions, he contrived to get together provi- 
sions and vessels for the transportation. But to raise the 
hard money to comply with General Washington's urgent 
request for a month's pay for the troops, was beyond his 
power. At the last moment he laid the case before the 
French admiral, and borrowed for a few weeks from the fleet 
treasury twenty thousand silver dollars. Just in the nick of 
time. Colonel Laurens arrived from France with five hundred 
thousand dollars in cash, which enabled Morris to pay this 
debt, and to give General Washington far more efficient 
support than he had hoped. 

To Robert Morris we owe one of the most pleasing 
accounts of the manner in which the surrender of Cornwallis 
was celebrated at Philadelphia. He records that on the 
third of November, 1781, on the invitation of the French 
Minister, he attended the Catholic Church, where Te Deiim 
was sung in acknowledgment of the victory. Soon after, 
all the flags captured from the enemy were brought to 



46 kEVOL UTtONAR V HEROES, 

Philadelphia by two of General Washington's aids, the city 
troop of Light Horse going out to meet them several miles. 
The flags were twenty-four in number, and each of them was 
carried into the city by one of the light horsemen. Morris 
concludes his account of this great day with affecting sim- 
plicity : 

" The American and French flags preceded the captured 
trophies, which were conducted to the State House, where 
they were presented to Congress, who were sitting; and 
many of the members tell me, that instead of viewing the 
transaction as a mere matter of joyful ceremony, which they 
expected to do, they instantly felt themselves impressed 
with ideas of the most solemn nature. It brought to their 
minds the distresses our country has been exposed to, the 
calamities we have repeatedly suffered, the perilous situations 
which our affairs have almost always been in ; and they 
could not but recollect the threats of Lord North that he 
would bring America to his feet on unconditional terms of 
submission." 

When the war was over, the finances of the country did 
not improve. In conjunction with General Washington and 
Robert R. Livingston, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, he hit 
upon a plan to recall the State legislatures to a sense of their 
duty. He engaged Thomas Paine, at a salary of eight 
hundred dollars a year, to employ his pen in reconciling the 
people to the necessity of supporting the burden of taxation, 
in setting forth, in his eloquent manner, the bravery and 
good conduct of the soldiers whose pay was so terribly in 
arrears, and in convincing the people of the need of a stronger 
confederated government. 

"" It was also agreed," says Morris in his private diary, 
*' that this allowance should not be known to any other per- 
sons except General Washington, Mr. Livingston, Gouverneur 
Morris, and myself, lest the publications might lose their 



RE VOL VTIONAR Y HEROES . 47 

force if it were known that the author is paid for them by 
government." 

The expedient did not suffice. The States were back- 
ward in voting contributions, and, in 1784, Robert Morris 
resigned his office after discharging all his personal obliga- 
tions incurred on account of the Government. He then 
resumed his private business. He was the first American 
citizen who ever sent to Canton an American vessel. This 
was in 1784, and he continued for many years to carry on an 
extensive commerce with India and China. 

Unhappily, in his old age, for some cause or causes that 
have never been recorded, he lost his judgment as a business 
man. About 1791, he formed a land company, which bought 
from the Six Nations in the State of New York a tract of 
land equal in extent to several of the German Principalities 
of that time, and they owned some millions of acres in five 
other States. These lands, bought for a trifling sum, would 
have enriched every member of the company if they had not 
omitted from their calculations the important element of 
time. But a gentleman sixty years of age cannot wait 
twenty years for the development of a speculation. Con- 
fident in the soundness of his calculations and expecting to 
be speedily rich beyond the dreams of avarice, he erected in 
Philadelphia a palace for his own abode, of the most pre- 
posterous magnificence. The architect assured him that the 
building would cost sixty thousand dollars, but the mere 
cellars exhausted that sum. He imported from Europe the 
most costly furniture and fine statuary for this house. 

But ardent speculators do not take into consideration the 
obvious and certain truth that no country enjoys a long 
period of buoyancy in money affairs. Hamilton's financial 
schemes led to such a sudden increase of values as to bring 
on a period of the wildest speculation ; which was followed, 
as it always is, by reaction and collapse. Then came the 



48 l^E I 'PL U TIONA R V HER PES. 

threatened renewal of the war with Great Britain, followed 
by the long imbroglio with France, which put a stop to 
emigration for years. The Western lands did not sell. The 
bubble burst. Robert Morris was ruined. He was arrested 
in 1797 upon the suit of one Blair McClenachan, to whom he 
owed sixteen thousand dollars, and he was confined in the 
debtors' prison in Philadelphia, as before mentioned, for 
four years. Nor would he have ever been released but for 
the operation of a new bankrupt law. A paragraph from 
one of his letters, written when he had been in prison two 
weeks, few people can read without emotion. These are 
the words of a man who had been a capitaHst and lived in 
luxury more than forty years : 

" I have tried in vain," he wrote, " to get a room exclu- 
sively to myself, and hope to be able to do so in a few days, 
but at a high rent which I am unable to bear. Then I may set 
up a bed in it, and have a chair or two and a table, and so be 
made comfortable. Now I am very uncomfortable, for I 
have no particular place allotted me. I feel like an intruder 
everywhere; sleeping in other people's beds, and sitting in 
other people's rooms. I am writing on other people's paper 
with other people's ink. The pen is my own. That and the 
clothes I wear are all that I can claim as mine here." 

Released in 1802, he lived with his wife in a small house 
on the outskirts of the city, where he died in 1806 aged 
seventy-two. 

It was often proposed in Congress to appropriate some of 
the money belonging to the industrious and frugal people of 
the United States to pay the debts of this rash speculator; 
and many writers since have censured the government for 
not doing something for his relief. The simple and sufficient 
answer is, that Congress has no constitutional power to apply 
the people's money to any such purpose. The government 
holds the public treasure in trust. It is a trustee, not a pro- 



REVOLUTIONAkY HEROES. 49 

prietor. It can spend public money only for purposes which 
the constitution specifies ; and, among these specified pur- 
poses, we do not find the relief of land speculators who build 
gorgeous palaces on credit. 



John Jay, 

The First Chief-Justice. 

It was the tyranny of Louis XIV., King of France, that 
drove the ancestor of John Jay to America. Pierre Jay, 
two hundred years ago, was a rich merchant in the French 
city of Rochelle. He was a Protestant — one of those worthy 
Frenchmen whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
expelled from the country of which they were the most 
valuable inhabitants. In 1685, the Protestant Church which 
he attended at Rochelle was demolished, and dragoons were 
quartered in the houses of its members. Secretly getting 
his family and a portion of his property on board of a ship, 
he sent them to England, and contrived soon after in a ship 
of his own, laden with a valuable cargo, to escape himself. 

It was not, however, from Pierre Jay that our American 
Jays were immediately descended, but from Augustus, one 
of his sons. It so happened that Augustus Jay, at the time 
of his father's flight, was absent from France on a mercantile 
mission to Africa, and he was astonished on returning to 
Rochelle to find himself without home or family. Nor was 
he free from the danger of arrest unless he changed his 
religion. Assisted by some friends, he took passage in a 
ship bound to Charleston in South Carolina which he reached 
in safety about the year 1686. Finding the chmate of South 



Carolina injurious to his health, he removed to New York, 
near which there was a whole village of refugees from his 
native city, which they had named New Rochelle, a village 
which has since grown to a considerable town, with which 
all New Yorkers are acquainted. His first employment 
here was that of supercargo, which he continued to exercise 
for several years, and in which he attained a moderate pros- 
perity. 

In 1697 Augustus Jay married Ann Maria Bayard, the 
daughter of a distinguished Dutch family, who iissisted him 
into business, and greatly promoted his fortunes. The only 
son of this marriage was Peter Jay, who, in his turn, married 
Mary Van Cortlandt, the child of another of the leading 
Dutch families of the city. This Peter Jay had ten children 
of whom John, the subject of this article, was the eighth, 
born in New York in 1745. In him were therefore united 
the vivacious blood of France with the solid qualities of the 
Dutch ; and, accordingly, we find in him something of the 
liveliness of the French along with a great deal of Dutch 
prudence and caution. 

After graduating from King's College,^ John Jay be- 
came a law student in the city of New York, in the office of 
Benjamin Kissam — still a well-known New York name. An 
anecdote related of this period reveals the French side of 
his character. He asked his father to allow him to keep a 
saddle horse in the city, a request with which the prudent 
father hesitated to comply. 

'' Horses," said he, "are not very good companions for a 
young man; and John, why do you want a horse?" 

" That I may have the means, sir," adroitly replied the 
son, *' of visiting you frequently." 

The father was vanquished, gave him a horse, and was 
rewarded by receiving a visit from his son at his country 

* Now Columbia. 



kEVOLUTIOf^AkY MEROES. 51 

house in Rye, twenty-five miles from the city, every other 
week. 

Another anecdote betrays the Frenchman. Soon after 
his admission to the bar, being opposed in a suit to Mr. 
Kissam, his preceptor, he somewhat puzzled and embar- 
rassed that gentleman in the course of his argument. Allud- 
ing to this, Mr. Kissam pleasantly said : 

'' I see, your honor, that I have brought up a bird to 
pick out my own eyes." 

*' Oh, no," instantly replied Mr. Jay ; '' not to pick out, 
but to open your eyes." 

Inheriting a large estate, and being allied either by mar- 
riage or by blood with most of the pow^erful families of the 
province, and being himself a man of good talents and most 
respectable character, he made rapid advance in his profes- 
sion, and gained a high place in the esteem and confidence 
of his fellow-citizens ; so that when the first Congress met 
?X Philadelphia, in 1/74, John Jay was one of those who 
represented in it the colony of New York. He was then 
twenty-nine years of age, and was, perhaps, the youngest 
member of the body, every individual of which he outlived. 

Some of the best written papers of that session w^ere of 
his composition. It was he who wrote that memorable ad- 
dress to the people of Great Britain, in which the wrongs of 
the colonists were expressed with so much eloquence, con- 
ciseness, and power. He left his lodgings in Philadelphia, it 
is said, and shut himself up in a room in a tavern to secure 
himself from interruption, and there penned the address 
which was the foundation of his political fortunes. 

At an early period of the Revolution he was appointed 
Minister to Spain, where he struggled with more persistance 
than success to induce a timid and dilatory government to 
render some substantial aid to his country. He was after- 
wards one of the commissioners who negotiated the treaty 



5^ KE VOL U T IP NARY HEROES. 

with Great Britain, in which the independence of the United 
States was acknowledged, and its boundaries settled. Soon 
after his return home Congress appointed him Secretary for 
Foreign Affairs, which was the most important office in their 
gift, and in which he displayed great ability in the dispatch 
of business. 

Like all the great men of that day — like Washington, 
Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Patrick Henry, John Randolph, 
and all others of similar grade — John Jay was an ardent 
abolitionist. He brought home with him from abroad one 
negro slave, to whom he gave his freedom when he had 
served long enough to repay him the expense incurred in 
brinoinof him to America. 

Mr. Jay, upon the division of the country into Repub- 
licans and Federalists, became a decided Federalist, and 
took a leading part in the direction of that great party. 
President Washington appointed him Chief-Justice of the 
Supreme Court, an office which he soon resigned. The most 
noted of all his public services was the negotiation of a 
treaty with Great Britain in 1794. The terms of this treaty 
were revolting in the extreme, both to the pride of Ameri- 
cans and to their sense of justice; and Mr. Jay was over- 
whelmed with the bitterest reproaches from the party opposed 
to his own. No man, however, has ever been able to show 
that better terms were attainable ; nor can any candid per- 
son now hold the opinion that the United States should 
have preferred war to the acceptance of those terms. If a 
very skillful negotiator could have done somewhat better 
for his country, Mr. Jay did the best he could, and, prob- 
ably, as well as any man could have done. 

Never was a public man more outrageously abused. On 
one occasion, a mob paraded the streets of Philadelphia, 
carrying an image of Mr. Jay holding a pair of scales. 
One of the scales was labeled, " American Liberty and In- 



REVOLUTIOyAR V HEROES. 53 

dependence," and the other, " British Gold," the latter 
weighing down the former as low as it could go, while from 
the mouth of the efifigy issued the words: 

'' Come up to my price and I will sell you my country." 
The effigy was finally burnt in one of the public squares. 
Notwithstanding this storm of abuse, Mr. Jay was elected 
Governor of New York, from which office he retired to his 
pleasant seat at Bedford, where he spent the remainder of 
his life. He lived to the year 1829, when he died, aged 
eighty-four years, leaving children and grandchildren who 
have sustained his high character, illustrated his memory, 
and continued his work. 



Fisher Ames, 

The Orator of the Fourth Congress. 

And who was Fisher Ames, that his " Speeches" should 
be gathered and re-published sixty-three years after his 
death? He was a personage in his time. Let us look upon 
him in the day of his greatest glory. 

It was April 28, 1796, at Philadelphia, in the Hall of the 
House of Representatives, of which Fisher Ames was a mem- 
ber. The House and country were highly excited respect- 
ing the terms of the treaty which John Jay had negotiated 
with the British government. To a large number of the 
people this treaty was inexpressibly odious; as, indeed, any 
treaty would have been with a power so abhorred by them 
as England then was. Some of the conditions of the treaty, 
we cannot deny, were hard, unwise, unjust; but, in all prob- 
ability, it was the best that could then have been obtained, 
and Mr. Jay had only the alternative of accepting the con- 
ditions, or plunging his country into war. One great point, 



54 REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 

at least, the British government had yielded. After the 
Revolutionary war, the English had retained several western 
posts, to the great annoyance of settlers, and the indignation 
of the whole country. These posts were now to be surren- 
dered, provided the treaty was accepted and its conditions 
fuelled. 

President Washington and the Senate had ratified the 
treaty — with reluctance, it is true ; but still they had ratified 
it; and nothing remained but for the House of Representa- 
tives to appropriate the money requisite for carrying the 
treaty into effect. But here was the difficulty. The treaty 
was so unpopular that members of Congress shrunk from 
even seeming to approve it. There had been riotous meet- 
ings in all the laro-e cities to denounce it. In New York, 
Alexander Hamilton, while attempting to address a meeting 
in support of it, was pelted with stones, and the people then 
marched to the residence of Mr. Jay, and burned a copy of 
the treaty before his door. 

'' Blush," said a Democratic editor, " to think that 
America should degrade herself so much as to enter into 
any kind of treaty with a power now tottering on the brink 
of ruin, whose principles are directly contrary to the spirit 
of Republicanism!" 

A Virginia newspaper advised that, if the treaty nego- 
tiated by ''that arch-traitor, John Jay, with the British 
tyrant, should be ratified," Virginia should secede from the 
Union. Indeed, the public mind has seldom been excited 
to such a degree upon any public topic. 

It was in these circumstances that Fisher Ames rose to 
address the House of Representatives, in favor of the treaty. 
There was supposed to be a majority of ten against it in the 
House, and the debate had been for some days in progress. 
Madison and all the leading Democrats had spoken strongly 
against it; while Fisher Ames, the greatest orator on the 



RE VOL U TIONA R V HEROES . 55 

side of the Administration, was suffering from the puhnonary 
disease from which he afterward died, and had been ordered 
by his physician not to speak a word in the House. Inaction 
at such a time became insupportable to him, and he chafed 
under it day after day. 

'* I am Hke an old gun," he wrote, in one of his letters, 
'' that is spiked, or the trunnions knocked off, and yet am 
carted off, not for the worth of the old iron, but to balk the 
enemy of a trophy. My political life is ended, and I am the 
survivor of myself ; or, rather, a troubled ghost of a politi- 
cian that am condemned to haunt the field where he fell." 

But as the debate went on, he could no longer endure to 
remain silent. He determined to speak, if he never spoke 
again ; and the announcement of his intention filled the 
Representatives' Chamber with a brilliant assembly of ladies 
and gentlemen. Vice-President Adams came to the chamber 
to hear him, among other persons of note. The orator rose 
from his seat pale, feeble, scarcely able to stand, or to make 
himself heard ; but as he proceeded he gathered strength, 
and was able to speak for nearly two hours in a strain of 
eloquence, the tradition of which fills a great place in the 
memoirs of the time. The report of it which we possess is 
imperfect, and the reading of it is somewhat disappointing ; 
but here and there there is a passage in the report which 
gives us some notion of the orator's power. One of his 
points was, that the faith of the country had been pledged 
by the ratification of the treaty, and that consequently a 
refusal of the House to appropriate the money would be a 
breach of faith. This led him to expatiate upon the neces- 
sity of national honor. 

'' In Algiers," said he, '' a truce may be bought for money ; 
but when ratified, even Algiers is too wise or too just to 
disown and annul its obligation. ... If there could be a 
resurrection from the foot of the gallows ; if the victims of 



56 REVOLUTIONARY HEROES . 

justice could live again, collect together and form a society, 
they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to 
make justice — that justice under which they fell — the funda- 
mental law of their State." 

This speech was afterward called Fisher Ames' Toma- 
hawk Speech, because he endeavored to show that, if the 
posts were not surrendered and not garrisoned by American 
troops, the Indians could not be kept in check, and would 
fill the frontier with massacre and fire. 

" On this theme," the orator exclaimed, " my emotions 
are unutterable. If I could find words for them, if my 
powers bore any proportion to my zeal, I would swell my 
voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every 
log-house beyond the mountains. I would say to the inhab- 
itants, Wake from your false security ! Your cruel dangers, 
your more cruel apprehensions, are soon to be renewed ; the 
wounds yet unhealed are to be torn open again ; in the day- 
time your path through the woods will be ambushed ; the 
darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your 
dwellings. You are a father — the blood of your sons shall 
fatten your corn-fields. You are a mother — the war-whoop 
shall wake the sleep of the cradle." 

He continued in this strain for some time, occasionally 
blazing into a simile that delighted every hearer with its 
brilliancy, while flashing a vivid light upon the subject ; and 
I only wish the space at my command permitted further 
extracts. The conclusion of the speech recalled attention to 
the orator's feeble condition of health, which the vigor of 
his speech might have made his hearers forget. 

" I have, perhaps," said he, " as little personal interest in 
the event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member 
who will not think his chance to be a witness of the conse- 
quences greater than mine. If, however, the vote should 
pass to reject, and a spirit should arise, as it will, with the 



RE VOL UTIONAR V HEROES. 51}' 

public disorders, to make confusion worse confounded, even 
I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon life is, may- 
outlive the government and constitution of my country." 

With these words the orator resumed his seat. The 
great assembly seemed spell-bound, and some seconds elapsed 
before the buzz of conversation was heard. John Adams 
turned to a friend. Judge Iredell, who happened to sit next 
to him, as if looking for sympathy in his own intense admi- 
ration. 

" My God !" exclaimed the Judge, ''how great he is — 
how great he has been !" 

'' Noble I" said the Vice-President. 

" Bless my stars !" resumed Judge Iredell, " I never heard 
anything so great since I was born." 

" Divine !" exclaimed Adams. 

And thus they went on with their interjections, while 
tears glistened in their eyes. Mr. Adams records that tears 
enough were shed on the occasion. 

" Not a dry eye in the house," he says, '* except some of 
the jackasses who had occasioned the oratory. . . . The 
ladies wished his soul had a better body." 

After many days' further debate, the House voted the 
money by a considerable majority ; a large number of 
Democrats voting with the administration. Fisher Ames 
was not so near his death as he supposed, for he lived twelve 
'years after the delivery of this speech, so slow was the prog- 
ress of his disease. He outlived Washington and Hamilton, 
and delivered eloquent addresses in commemoration of both. 

The great misfortune of his life was that very ill-health 
to which he alluded in his speech. This tinged his mind 
with gloom, and caused him to anticipate the future of his 
country with morbid apprehension. When Jefferson was 
elected President in 1800, he thought the ruin of his country 
was sure, and spoke of the *' chains" which Jefferson had 



58 l^E VOL UTIONAR J ' HEROES. 

forged for the people. When Hamilton died, in 1804, he 
declared that his " soul stiffened with despair," and he com- 
pared the fallen statesman to " Hercules treacherously slain 
in the midst of his unfinished labors, leaving the world over- 
run with monsters." He was one of the most honest and 
patriotic of men ; but he had little faith in the truths upon 
which the Constitution of his country was founded. 

He died at his birthplace, Dedham, Massachusetts, on 
the 4th of July, 1808, in the fifty-first year of his age. His 
father had been the physician of that place for many years 
— a man of great skill in his profession, and gifted with a 
vigorous mind. Doctor Ames died when his son was only 
six years of age, and it cost the boy a severe and long 
struggle to work his way through college to the profession 
of the law, and to public life. If he had had a body equal 
to his mind, he would have been one of the greatest men 
New England ever produced. 



The Pinckneys of South Carolina. 

In the political writings of Washington's day, we fre- 
quently meet with the name of Pinckney ; and, as there 
were several persons of that name in public life, readers of 
history are often at a loss to distinguish between them. 
This confusion is the more troublesome, because they were 
all of the same family and State, and their career also had a 
strong family likeness. 

The founder of this family in America was Thomas Pinck- 
ney, who emigrated to South Carolina in the year 1692. He 
possessed a large fortune, and built in Charleston a stately 
mansion, which is still standing, unless it was demolished 
during the late war. A curious anecdote is related of this 



kE VOL U TIONA R V HEROES. 50 

original Pinckney, which is about all that is now known of 
him. Standing at the window of his house one day, with his 
wife at his side, he noticed a stream of passengers walking 
up the street, who had just landed from a vessel that day 
arrived from the West Indies. As they walked along the 
street, he noticed particularly a handsome man who was 
very gayly dressed ; and turning to his wife he said : 

*' That handsome West Indian will marry some poor fel- 
low's widow, break her heart, and ruin her children." 

Strange to relate, the widow whom this handsome West 
Indian married was no other than Mrs. Pinckney herself ; 
for Thomas Pinckney soon after died, and his widow married 
the West Indian. He did not break her heart, since she 
lived to marry a third husband, but he was an extravagant 
fellow, and wasted part of her children's inheritance. 
Thomas Pinckney, then, is to be distinguished from others 
of the name as W\^ founder of the family in America. 

The eldest son of Thomas, that grew to man's estate, was 
Charles Pinckney, who embraced the legal profession, and 
rose to be Chief Justice of the Province of South Carolina, 
and hence he is usually spoken of and distinguished from 
the rest of the family as " Chief Justice Pinckney." He was 
educated in England, and was married there. Returning to 
Charleston, he acquired a large fortune by the practice of 
his profession. A strange anecdote is related of his wife 
also. After he had been married many years without havmg 
children, there came to Charleston from England, on a visit 
of pleasure a young lady named Eliza Lucas, daughter of an 
officer in the English army. She was an exceedingly lovely 
and brilliant girl, and made a great stir in the province. She 
was particularly admired by the wife of the Chief Justice, 
who said one day in jest : 

** Rather than have Miss Lucas return home, I will myself 
step out of the way, and let her take my place." 



(50 REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. 

Within a few months after uttering these words she died, 
and soon after her death the Chief Justice actually married 
Miss Lucas. This lady was one of the greatest benefactors 
South Carolina ever had ; for, besides being an example of 
all the virtues and graces which adorn the female character, 
it was she who introduced into the province the cultivation 
of rice. In addition to the other services which she rendered 
her adopted home, she gave birth to the two brothers Pinck- 
ney, who are of most note in the general history of the coun- 
try. The elder of these was Charles Cotesvvorth Pinckney, 
born in 1746, and the younger was Thomas, born in 1750. 

When these two boys were old enough to begin their 
education, their father, the Chief Justice, like a good father 
as he was, went with them to England, accompanied by all 
his family, and there resided for many years, while they were 
at school ; for at that day there were no means of education 
in South Carolina. The boys were placed at Westminster 
school in London, and completed their studies at the Univer- 
sity of Oxford. After leaving the University they began the 
study of the law in London, and were pursuing their studies 
there, or just beginning practice, when the troubles preced- 
ing the Revolutionary War hastened their return to their 
native land. They had been absent from their country twen- 
ty-one years, and were much gratified on reaching Charles- 
ton to witness its prosperity and unexpected growth. The 
elder of these brothers could remember when the first plant- 
er's wagon was driven into Charleston. This was about the 
year 1753. Pointing to this wagon one day, his father said 
to him : 

"Charles, by the time you are a man, I don't doubt there 
will be at least twenty wagons coming to town," 

Often in after life, when he would meet a long string of 
wagons in the country loaded with cotton or rice, he would 
relate this reminiscence of his childhood, and add : 



RE VO L U TIONA R V HEROES. 61 

'' How happy my father would have been in the growth 
and prosperity of CaroHna !" 

These young men from the beginning of the Stamp Act 
agitation, when they were just coming of age, sympathized 
warmly with their oppressed countrymen on the other side 
of the ocean, and soon after their return home they entered 
the Continental army and served gallantly throughout the 
war. In 1780 we find Charles Cotesworth Pinckney writing 
to his wife in the following noble strain : 

"■ Our friend, Philip Neyle was killed by a cannon-ball 
coming through one of the embrasures ; but I do not pity 
him, for he has died nobly in the defense of his country ; 
but I pity his aged father, now unhappily bereaved of his 
beloved and only child." 

To one of his young friends he wrote soon after: 
" If I had a vein that did not beat with love for my coun- 
try, I myself would open it. If I had a drop of blood that 
could flow dishonorably, I myself would let it out." 

It was the fortune of both these brothers to be held 
for a long time by the enemy as prisoners of war. The 
elder was captured upon the surrender of Charleston. The 
younger was desperately wounded at the battle of Camden, 
and was about to be transfixed by a bayonet, when a British 
ofificer who had known him at college recognized his fea- 
tures, and cried out in the nick of time : 

" Save Tom Pinckney !" 

The uplifted bayonet was withheld, and the wounded 
man was borne from the field a prisoner. 

After the peace. General C. C. Pinckney was a member 
of the convention which framed our Constitution. During 
the Presidency of General Washington, he declined, first a 
seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court, and twice de- 
clined entering the cabinet. During the last year of Wash- 
ington's administration, he accepted the appointment of 



Q2 RE VOL U TIONAR Y HEROES. 

Minister to France, and it was while residing in Paris, that 
he uttered a few words which will probably render his name 
immortal. He was associated with Chief Justice Marshall and 
Elbridge Gerry, and their great object was to prevent a war 
between the United States and France. It was during the 
reign of the corrupt Directory that they performed this mis- 
sion ; and Talleyrand, the Minister of War, gave them to un- 
derstand that nothing could be accomplished in the way of 
negotiation unless they were prepared to present to the gov- 
ernment a large sum of money. The honest Americans ob- 
jecting to this proposal, Talleyrand intimated to them that 
they must either give the money or accept the alternative 
of war. Then it was that the honest and gallant Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney uttered the words which Americans 
will never forget till they have ceased to be worthy of their 
ancestors : 

'' War be it, then !" exclaimed General Pinckney, '' Mill- 
ions for defense, sir; but not a cent for tribute !" 

On his return to the United States, war being imminent 
with France, he was appointed a Major-general in the army, 
and in the year 1800 he was a candidate for the Presidency. 
He lived to the year 1825, when he died at Charleston at 
the age of seventy-nine. 

His brother Thomas was the Governor of South Caro- 
lina in 1789, and in 1792 was appointed by General Wash- 
ington Minister to Great Britain. After residing some years 
in England, he was sent to Spain, where he negotiated the 
important treaty which secured us the free navigation of the 
Mississippi. After his return home, he served several years 
in Congress on the Federal side, and then retired to private 
life. During the war of 1 81 2, he received the commission 
of Major-general, and served under General Jackson at the 
celebrated battle of Horseshoe Bend, where the power of the 
Creek Indians was broken forever. 



REVOLUTIONARY HEROES. (J3 

He died at Charleston in 1828, aged seventy-eight years. 

Besides these Pinckneys there was a noted Charles Pinck- 
ney, a nephew of Chief Justice Pinckney, who was also cap- 
tured when Charleston surrendered, remained a prisoner 
until near the close of the war, and afterwards bore a distin- 
guished part in public life. He may be distinguished from 
others of his name from his being a democrat, an active 
adherent of Thomas Jefferson. He served as Minister to 
Spain during Mr. Jefferson's administration, and was four 
times elected Governor of South Carolina. 

Finally, there was a Henry Laurens Pinckney, son of the 
Governor Pinckney last mentioned, born in 1794. For six- 
teen years he was a member of the Legislature of South 
Carolina, and was afterwards better known as editor and 
proprietor of the Charleston Mercury, a champion of State 
rights, and afterwards of nullification. During the nullifica- 
tion period, he was Mayor of Charleston, an office to which 
he was three times re-elected. 

Thus the Pinckneys may be distinguished as follows : 
Thomas Pinckney, the founder; Charles Pinckney, the Chief 
Justice ; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the Ambassador and 
candidate for the Presidency ; Thomas Pinckney, General in 
the war of 1812 ; Charles Pinckney, the democrat; and 
Henry Laurens Pinckney, editor and author. 



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